Lucas Stewart's Blog, page 6

Ponnya Khin – Novels to Movies

Ponnya Khin (b. 1972) is a novelist and short story writer.  Born in Ayeyarwaddy Region, she worked at various jobs, including a primary school teacher and journalist.  She published her first story in 1993, moved to Yangon and has, unusually, written full time since 2000.  She has achieved this through an immense literary output, with 125 novels and 6 short story collections.  Many (over 100) of her novels have been adapted for the big screen and 3 have received prizes at the annual Myanmar Moti...

Sadaik Shorts: Myanmar Superlatives

Subtitled as a collection of the greatest wonders in Myanmar, it is no surprise that the bulk of this informative and well-researched collated series of articles focus on the largest and oldest ‘religious’ monuments; the monasteries, images and pagodas that the nation is renowned for.  Yet, given the author’s knowledge, there is a regrettable sense of omission, as if the book is only half complete, for only towards the book’s end does he stray into secular wonders; Myanmar’s engineering marve...

Exploring Burma’s Bookshops: TAB

Supposedly the largest bookshop chain in Myanmar in terms of floor space, TAB has grown a reputation as a solid bookstore, popular with younger customers in their 20’s and 30’s thanks a wide selection of genres from literary fiction, politics and education spread across their six locations.  The shops are clean, bright, professionally curated and well run.  Despite this, the business itself is not a profit maker and is regularly subsidised by the owner’s primary business in selling clothes fo...

# 13 – Kayaw Literature and Culture Committee

The smallest of the three main ethnic communities from Kayah State on Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand, the Kayaw’s literature and culture committee is also the oldest.  Begun as early as 1968/69, the incessant fighting between the military government and the multiple Karenni armed groups has severely dented the operations and membership of the KLCC.  Since the transition, and the easing of restrictions in movement and non-political activities, the current central committee is embarking...

Ma Ju – Medicine to Novels

Ma Ju (b. 1958):  Like her younger contemporary Ma Thida, Ma Ju is a medical doctor by training though more well known as one of Myanmar’s leading women writers.  She is renowned for her position on gender equality and female empowerment, themes often mirrored in her strong female characters and taboo storylines that have, at times, caused controversy among the male literati.  Her first novel ‘Memorable’ was published in 1987.  She is now a full time writer, with at least 7 short story collec...

Sarpay Beikmann Building

If there was to be a single place that embodies the turbulent rise and fall of literature in Myanmar from Independence to the present day, it is the Sarpay Beikmann and its eponymous building in downtown Kyauktada township.

In 1947, General Aung San, in his last public speech before his assassination, encouraged the creation of a national translation society.  Originally named the Burma Translation Society and inaugurated on 26th August 1947, the governing body comprised many of the leading w...

Sadaik Shorts: The Rainy Season Setting

In this slim chapbook a sense of place is everywhere, guided by the subtleness of San Oo’s voice which shifts, from civility to a harshness unexpected.  Throughout, the senses are lulled by a cadence brought on repetitious cycles, yet, Nyunt Wai Moe’s impressive translation, never falters, it never bores.  The Rainy Season Setting is to be read in a single sitting, to do otherwise would be to disrupt the voyage.

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Title: The Rainy Season Setting

Author: San Oo

Translator: Nyunt Wai Moe

Publish...

Exploring Burma’s Bookshops: C.A.C.C

Hakha is the capital of Chin State, Myanmar’s least developed region and a restricted area for foreigners without permits until 2012.  With very few roads, and many of the villages clinging to remote hillsides, it is detached from the literary centres of the country.  There are no bookshops in Chin State, at least not stores that are solely for the purpose of selling books.  In the larger towns, like Hakha, Falam, Matupi and Teddim, there are general stores which may have a cabinet with a few...

# 12 – Myanmar Poets Union

Formed out of the ashes of the government controlled Myanmar Writers and Journalists Association in 2013, the MPU began life as a place for poets to meet, argue and fight over the direction of the form in Myanmar.  Still divided into traditional and modernists, they refuse to amalgamate with other literary associations, such as the Myanmar Writers Union, the Myanmar Writers Association or the Myanmar Writers Club, for, in their own words, ‘we are poets, we don’t write’.

 

To read more about M...

Aung Cheimt – Prison to Poetry

Aung Cheimt (b.1948) is a poet, translator and former political prisoner.  Known as a member of the “Revolutionary Poets’, this epithet come from both his time incarcerated in the 1960’s after the military coup and for his contribution in the birth of a more modern stylistic framing of the role poetry could play in 1970’s Myanmar.  A contributor to the famed Moe Wai magazine which steered a generation of political writers and editors, Aung Cheimt has published at least 20 collections of poetr...